NOTE: Always turn the console POWER switch OFF when inserting or removing an ATARI Game Program cartridge. This will protect the electronic components and prolong the life of your ATARI Video Computer System game. GAME OBJECTIVE As a Moon Buggy driver, your objective is to travel across the surface of the moon as quickly as you can. While you progress on your journey, you'll encounter huge craters, exploding land mines, and moon rocks on the lunar surface. To make your journey even more challenging, your Moon Buggy comes under missile fire from alien UFOs, some of which create even more craters. Push your Joystick up to jump over craters, land mines, and other obstacles. Time your jumps carefully: a poorly timed jump will cause your Moon Buggy to crash. Push your Joystick right to increase the speed of your Moon Buggy; push the Joystick left to slow it down. Press the red fire button to shoot your laser guns. When an enemy car appears from behind. use your jumping skill to jump over it, then blast it away when it's in front of you. When you encounter an enemy tank, jump over it and its bullets, or simply destroy it for maximum points. GAME PLAY You start the game with four Moon Buggy lives. If one is destroyed. you restart at the course segment where your Moon Buggy was destroyed. The number of Moon Buggies remaining is shown at the bottom of the screen. When all your Moon Buggy lives are lost. the game ends. To restart the game at the beginning. press the red fire button. There are two courses and three skill levels: Easy. Medium, and Hard (see GAME VARIATIONS). Each course is divided into 26 segments, indicated by markers along the way. A segment is completed when its x marker passes off the left side of the screen. The gauge at the lower center of the screen indicates your location on the course. It is divided into five sections, 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, and 21-26. The gauge fills with color as you travel along the course. When you complete course 1, your Moon Buggy moves on to course 2, which continues to progress in difficulty. A timer at the bottom of the screen clocks your journey. It starts ticking away the seconds as soon as you start. When the timer reaches 999 seconds, it stops counting. but you can continue driving. You score points for shooting UFOs and for destroying or jumping over rocks, enemy cars, craters, tanks. and land mines. You can also earn bonus points for completing the course in less than the average time (see SCORING for details). USING THE CONTROLLERS Plug one Joystick controller into the LEFT CONTROLLER jack for one-player games; plug a second controller into the RIGHT CONTROLLER jack for two-player games. In two-player games, the player using the left controller starts the game. (See your owner's manual for further details.) Hold the controller with the red fire button to your upper left, toward the television screen. Press the red fire button to start the game. Use your Joystick to maneuver your Moon Buggy across the lunar surface. Push the Joystick right to accelerate forward; push it left to slow down, push it up to jump. Press the red fire button to shoot missiles; your shots will go up and directly out in front of your Moon Buggy at the same time. CONSOLE CONTROLS Press GAME SELECT to choose the game variation you want to play. The game variations are indicated at the bottom of the screen. (See GAME VARIATIONS for more information about each variation.) Press GAME RESET when you want to start the game over from the beginning of the course. The LEFT DIFFICULTY switch can be used to turn off the background MOON PATROL music when placed in the A position. The RIGHT DIFFICULTY switch can be used to select either two moving speeds or three moving speeds. Set the switch to B for three speeds. set it to A for two speeds. GAME VARIATIONS There are six game variations in MOON PATROL: The EASY version is a good choice for beginners and young children. This variation starts on course 1, and the difficulty progression is slow. There are fewer craters. Land mines. and UFO missiles. The MEDIUM version also begins on course 1, but its progression in difficulty is faster. The HARD version begins on course 2, and progresses quickly in difficulty. Regardless of the course on which you start, the difficulty level progresses as you continue on your journey. SCORING One bonus Moon Buggy is awarded at 10,000, 30,000, and 50,000 points. Bonus points are awarded for completing a section of five markers, for completing it in better than average time, and for completing the entire course. See the following chart for bonus point values. COURSE ONE POINTS Completing each section of five markers 1000 Each second under 55 seconds it takes 100 to complete section 1 or 2 Each second under 60 seconds it takes 100 to complete section 3 or 4 Each second under 65 seconds it takes 100 to complete section 5 Completing the entire first course 5000 COURSE TWO POINTS Completing each section of five markers 2000 Each section completed in less than 100 70 seconds Completing the entire second course 10000 Jumping Pts. Shooting Pts. 100 Single Crater -- 200 Double Crater -- 50 Land Mine -- 80 Rock 100 100 Tank 200 -- Regular UFO 100 -- Crater UFO 200 -- Enemy Car 500/800/1000 (random) HELPFUL HINTS As you travel along the course, you'll see areas where a rock is placed just behind a land mine or crater. When this happens, time your shot very carefully. Another trick: Try taking one long jump over two closely positioned obstacles. Watch out for UFOs that look like this: ~ They drop missiles which create huge craters directly in front of your Moon Buggy. The best way to handle these pests is to destroy them before they can drop missiles. To protect yourself, shoot at UFO missiles while they're in the air. Start your jumps well in front of a hole to land just on the other side, giving you more time and space to begin a second jump. Scoring points for destroying the enemy car is random, so just shoot as soon as you can. -------------------Atari 2600 Instructions Archive-------------------